The Boy from the Woods

by Harlan Coben

“Threatening the schoolteacher’s job,” Wilde said with a small shake of the head. “That’s kind of beneath you, isn’t it?”

  Gavin smiled. “It is, yes. I read up on you, Wilde. Most of your military record is classified, but, well, I’m not without means. Very impressive. Your whole life story is. But as I said before, I have the manpower and resources. So here is our new deal. I’ll question the kid for you. If Crash Maynard knows anything about this girl, I’ll tell you.”

  They kept walking.

  “I have a question,” Wilde said.

  “I’m listening.”

  “Last time we talked you said there was much more at stake here than a teenage brawl.”

  “Is that a question?”

  “What’s at stake?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “Seriously?”

  Gavin Chambers smiled. “It has nothing to do with Naomi Pine.”

  “Does it have something to do with Rusty Eggers?”

  Another black Cadillac Escalade pulled in front of them. Gavin slapped him on the back and moved toward it.

  “Stay in touch,” he said to Wilde, “but stay away.”

  * * *

  When Wilde entered the woods on his way back to the Ecocapsule, Matthew was waiting for him, pacing, his hands in tight fists. “What the hell was that all about?”

  “You seem upset,” Wilde said.

  Wilde headed up the path. Matthew fell in behind him.

  “Well?”

  “Well what?”

  “What were you doing at my school?”

  “I asked Crash Maynard about Naomi.”

  “At my school? Are you kidding me?”

  “That a problem, Matthew?”

  “I have to go to school here. You get that, right?”

  Wilde stopped.

  “What?” Matthew asked.

  “Did you already forget what you did to her?”

  That shut the boy up. Wilde watched the blood drain from Matthew’s face. The woods stood silent, solemn. Matthew’s voice, when he found it, was soft. “No.”

  His chin was down—and ah damn, just like David. The echo of the father was so strong on the son’s face right now that Wilde almost took a step back. A few seconds later, Matthew’s chin rose. He saw the expression on Wilde’s face and snapped, “Cut that out.”

  “I’m not doing anything.”

  “Yeah, you are,” Matthew said. “You know I hate when you give me that ‘oh my God, he looks like his dad’ face.”

  Wilde couldn’t help but smile. “Fair enough.”

  “Just stop it.”

  “Okay, I’m sorry.” Wilde mimed wiping away the expression on his face with his hand. “See?”

  Matthew sighed. “You can be so lame.”

  Wilde smiled.

  “What?”

  “That’s the kind of thing your father would have said.”

  Matthew rolled his eyes. “Will you stop?”

  He often warned Matthew that he would bring up his father, like it or not. He didn’t do it to appease David’s ghost or any of that—dead was dead in Wilde’s worldview—but for Matthew. He had been robbed of his father. It doesn’t mean he should be robbed of the memory or influence.

  “So what would Saint Dad say about this?” Matthew asked in the most grudging tone he could muster.

  “About what?”

  “About what I did to Naomi?”

  “He’d be pissed.”

  “Would he ground me?”

  “Oh yeah. He’d also make you apologize.”

  “I tried to.” Then: “I will.”

  “Cool. And your dad wasn’t a saint. He messed up plenty. But he also made amends.”

  They were heading across the ravine, not far from the Ecocapsule, when Matthew said, “Always?”

  “Always what?”

  “Did he always make amends?”

  Wilde felt something flutter inside his chest. “He tried.”

  “Mom thinks you’re hiding something about the night of the accident.”

  Wilde didn’t break stride, but the words stung. “She told you that?”

  “Are you?”

  “No.”

  Matthew eyed him. Forget David—the kid was more like Laila when he gave him the skeptical eye. Then Matthew blinked and said, “Doesn’t matter, does it? He’s dead either way.”

  Wilde thought about it and decided that his comment didn’t require a response.

  Matthew asked, “So what did Crash tell you?”

  The subject change plus the alternate definition of the word—“Crash” the name as opposed to “crash” as in the accident—threw him for a moment. “Not much. But he seemed nervous.”

  “So you think, what, that Crash did something to Naomi?”

  “All signs still indicate she ran off on her own.”

  “But?”

  “But something isn’t adding up for me.”

  Matthew smiled at that. “Didn’t you teach me that there is always chaos?”

  “Anomalies are to be expected, but there is still a certain pattern to the chaos.”

  “A pattern to the chaos,” Matthew repeated. “That doesn’t make much sense.”

  True enough, Wilde thought.

  “I think…” Matthew stammered. “I think what I did to Naomi that night. Not showing up. I feel guilty, I guess. This is all my fault in some ways, right?”

  Matthew waited. Wilde waited.

  Then Wilde said, “You want me to say something comforting here?”

  “Only if you feel it.”

  “I don’t.”

  They arrived at the Ecocapsule. Matthew, the only guest he ever had out here, liked to do homework in the tighter confines. “Fewer distractions,” he told Wilde. Matthew wanted to study for a physics test. The kid was good in the sciences. Wilde stayed outside and read his book.

  Two hours later, Matthew emerged.

  “Good study sesh?” Wilde asked.

  “Yes, thank you. And never say ‘sesh’ again.”

  They made the trek back toward Matthew’s house. When they arrived, Wilde said he wanted some water. Normally he’d leave once he made sure Matthew was inside, but what with the strangeness around Naomi and even Crash, it might pay to hang around until his mother got home.

  He also wanted to see Laila for two reasons. The first was what Matthew had just told him—that Laila still questioned the official account of what happened on that treacherous mountain road all those years ago.

  “Matthew?”

  “Yeah?”

  Wilde thought back to Ava’s conversation with Crash. “Anything you’re keeping from me?”

  “Huh?”

  “About Naomi.”

  “No.”

  Matthew handed him the glass of water. Then he headed up to his bedroom and closed the door. He didn’t tell Wilde what he was up to and Wilde didn’t ask. Wilde sat in the den and waited. At seven p.m., Laila’s car glided into the driveway. He stood when she opened the door.

  “Hey,” Laila said when she saw him.

  “Hey.”

  “I’ve been meaning to talk to you,” Laila said.

  This was the second—and more important—reason Wilde had stayed.

  “Yeah, I know,” Wilde said.

  Laila stopped. “You know?”

  “I was here the other night with Matthew when you pulled up. I ducked out the back.”

  “Oh,” Laila said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Early days,” Laila said. “I don’t know if it’ll go anywhere—”

  “You don’t need to explain—”

  “—but it might.”

  Laila just looked at him. He got the message. She was ready to take the relationship with Designer Threads to the next level. The physical level, for those slow on the take.

  “No worries,” Wilde said.

  “Plenty of worries,” Laila countered.

  “I mean—”

  “I know what you mean, Wil
de.”

  He nodded and stood. “I better go.”

  “It won’t be weird, right?”

  “It never is, is it?”

  “Sometimes it is, yeah,” Laila said. “And sometimes you stay away too much.”

  “I don’t want to intrude.”

  “You won’t intrude. But Matthew still needs you. I still need you.”

  He crossed the room and kissed her cheek with almost too much tenderness. “I’ll be here when you need me.”

  “I love you, Wilde.”

  “I love you too, Laila.”

  He smiled. She smiled. Wilde felt something in his chest crack a little. Laila…well, he didn’t know what she felt.

  “Good night,” he said, and left by the back door.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY

  Hester chose the restaurant—RedFarm, a modern dim sum joint that mixes delicious with casual and a touch of food humor. Her favorite dumplings, for example, were called “Pac Man” and looked like the ghostly creatures from the old video game. RedFarm didn’t take reservations, but Hester came often and so she knew a guy who could get her a corner table when she needed it. The vibe here was creative and cool rather than romantic and quiet, but hey, first date.

  No pressure, right?

  Oren had trusted Hester to order. Now the table was loaded up with dumplings—three-color vegetable, shrimp and mango, pork and crab soup (another favorite), crispy oxtail, black truffle chicken.

  “Heaven,” Oren muttered between bites.

  “You like?”

  “It’s so delicious I’m almost forgetting how wonderful the company is.”

  “Smooth line,” Hester said. “Can I ask you about your ex-wife?”

  His chopsticks had just clamped down on a dumpling. “Seriously?”

  “I’m not good with subtlety.”

  “Nice demonstration of that.”

  “And it’s on my mind.”

  “My ex-wife is on your mind?”

  “I just have a few questions. I can sit here and let them distract me or I can just ask them.”

  Oren picked up the dim sum. “I don’t want you distracted.”

  “I found Cheryl’s Instagram page.”

  “Ah,” he said.

  “You’ve seen it?”

  “I haven’t, no. I don’t do social media.”

  “But you know about it?”

  “I do, yes.”

  “Do you still think about her?”

  “I’m supposed to answer no, right?”

  “I saw the pics.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “So I don’t blame you.”

  “Of course I still think about her—but not like that. We were married for twenty-eight years. Do you still think of Ira?”

  Hester didn’t answer right away. She had tried on a dozen outfits before settling on this dress. It was only as she caught her reflection in a window on the street that she realized it was a dress Ira always said made her look sexy.

  “We both have pasts, Hester.”

  “I just…” She wasn’t sure how to put it. “We’re so different. Cheryl and I.”

  “Yes.”

  “I know this is only a first date, but she’s just so…sexy.”

  “So are you.”

  “Don’t patronize me, Oren.”

  “I’m not. I get it. But this isn’t a competition.”

  “Thank God for that. You said Cheryl left you.”

  “She did and she didn’t.”

  “Meaning?”

  “I think I left her first. At least emotionally. She left me because in part I left her.” He put down his chopsticks and wiped his napkin with his chin. His movements were deliberate now. “When the kids were gone, I think Cheryl felt adrift. You know our town. It’s about raising families. When that’s gone, well, you, Hester, have a career. But Cheryl just looked around her and the kids are gone and I’m still going to work every day and she’s either at home or playing tennis or going to Zumba or whatever.”

  “So she just ended it?”

  “One of us doesn’t have to be at fault. Divorce doesn’t mean your marriage was a failure.”

  “Uh, sorry to disagree, but divorce seems to be pretty much the definition of a failed marriage.”

  Oren clenched his jaw and turned away for a moment. “Cheryl and I had twenty-eight years together. We raised three good kids. We have a grandchild and another on the way. Put it this way: If you owned a car for twenty-eight years and then it breaks down, does that make the car a failure?”

  Hester frowned. “That analogy is a stretch.”

  “Then how about this one? If life is a book, we are both starting new chapters. She’ll always be important to me. I’ll always wish her happiness.”

  “She’s just—to continue with this analogy—not in your chapters anymore?”

  “Exactly.”

  Hester shook her head. “God, that’s so mature I want to barf.”

  Oren smiled. “Not until I try that crispy oxtail dim sum please.”

  “Okay, one final question,” Hester said.

  “Fine, go ahead.”

  Hester cupped her hands in front of her chest. “Cheryl had a boob job, right? I mean, those puppies are high enough to double as earrings.”

  Oren laughed as Hester felt her phone vibrate. She counted the pulses in her head.

  “Three pulses,” she said. “I have to take it.”

  “What?”

  “One pulse is just a regular call. Two pulses means it’s work. Three, it’s something important and I should pick it up.”

  Oren gestured with both hands. “Pick it up already.”

  She put the phone to her ear. It was Sarah McLynn from her office.

  “What’s up?” Hester asked.

  “Are you on your date?”

  “You’re interrupting it.”

  “Sneak a photo of him. I want to see.”

  “Was there another reason for this call?”

  “Does there have to be?”

  “Sarah.”

  “Fine. I reached out to Naomi’s mother like you asked.”

  “And?”

  “And she refuses to talk to you. She said to mind your own business and hung up.”

  * * *

  Gavin Chambers was at the window of his office high-rise in midtown, looking down at the “protestors”—a ragtag group of aging grunge-ola that probably numbered no more than twenty—mulling inside the building’s courtyard. The chant—“Release the tapes!”—was hardly catching fire. The quasi-vagrants held up signs for every left-wing cause. Two of the women donned faded pink knit caps. According to the various signs, they wanted to Free Palestine, Resist, Abolish ICE—but their hearts didn’t seem to be in it today. The march looked to Gavin more like a languid sway.

  Delia joined him at the window. “Isn’t that—?”

  “Saul Strauss,” Gavin said with a nod. His old war buddy wasn’t hard to spot, Saul being close to six six and sporting the long gray ponytail that was so on point it could only be there to be on point.

  Dash finished up a phone call and moved next to his wife. There was an ease between Dash and Delia, always, a flow, and while Gavin had had plenty of great relationships in his life, he envied these two. People can fool you—they fool you every day—but Gavin had been hanging around the Maynards long enough to recognize that Dash and Delia were the real deal, the kind of love that makes yours, no matter how good, seem somewhat inadequate. It wasn’t just what they said. It wasn’t just how they looked at each other or casually touched. There was an intangible here, that mix of great friendship and physical attraction, and maybe that was something Gavin was projecting on them, but when they talk about a soulmate, one person in this world that is perfect for you and almost impossible to find, Dash and Delia seemed to have done just that.

  “What do the protestors want?” Delia asked.

  “You can hear them,” Gavin said. “They want the tapes.”

 
“There are no tapes,” Delia replied.

  “They don’t believe that.”

  “Do you, Gavin?” she asked.

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “I’ll protect you either way.”

  Dash finally spoke. “That’s not what she asked.”

  Gavin looked at Dash, then back at Delia. “Of course there are tapes,” Gavin said. “Are they as damaging to Rusty as our hemp-adorned friends below would like to believe? Not for me to say.”

  Dash moved back toward his office desk. “You understand the situation then.”

  Gavin didn’t bother with a response.

  “We aren’t safe,” Delia said, moving with her husband. “If Crash could be approached like that in his very school—”

  “That won’t happen again.”

  Dash put his arm around his wife’s shoulder. Again Gavin couldn’t help but notice the ease, the naturalness, the tenderness, in this everyday move. “Not good enough.”

  “Who was that man?” Delia asked.

  “Crash didn’t tell you?”

  Delia shook her head. “He said he kept asking about Naomi Pine.”

  “They call him Wilde.”

  “Wait, he’s that weird mountain guy they found in the woods?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t get it. What does he have to do with Naomi Pine?”

  “He is something of a surrogate parent for Matthew Crimstein. For some reason, Matthew and his family are interested in Naomi’s whereabouts.”

  “Crimstein,” Dash repeated. “As in Hester?”

  “Yes.”

  No one liked that.

  “Crash swears he doesn’t know anything about Naomi,” Delia said. When Gavin didn’t respond, she asked, “Do you think he does?”

  “Crash has been in touch with her. Naomi Pine, I mean. As you probably know, she disappeared a week or so ago playing a game called Challenge.”

  “Some of the mothers were talking about that.”

  “Crash…encouraged her to do it.”

  “Are you saying he forced her?”

  “No, but peer pressure was a major factor.”

  “You don’t think Crash did something bad to this girl, do you?”

  “Very doubtful,” Gavin said. “He’s too monitored.”

  They both were visibly relieved.

  “But that doesn’t mean he knows nothing about it.”

  “So what do we do? I don’t like this.” Delia looked down at the courtyard again. Saul Strauss was staring straight up, almost as though he could see them through the one-way windows. “I don’t like any of this.”